is a Japanese politician and member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

, representing the

Tokyo 15th district is an electoral district of the Japanese House of Representatives. The district was established in 1994 as part of the change to single-member districts, and it is currently represented by independent politician Kakizawa Mito. Areas Covered ...

in the

Kakizawa was born in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

while his father

Koji Kakizawa was a Japanese politician who served as Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1994. After his death, he had been conferred as Junior Third Rank, Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Facul ...

was stationed overseas with the Ministry of Finance. He grew up in Tokyo, attending

Azabu High School , referred to as "Azabu" by most, is a private preparatory day school in Japan. It teaches boys between seventh and twelves grades. The campus of Azabu is located in the Azabu district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Azabu High School technically consi ...

and the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. He worked for

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

Nagano Nagano may refer to: Places * Nagano Prefecture, a prefecture in Japan ** Nagano (city), the capital city of the same prefecture *** Nagano 1998, the 1998 Winter Olympics *** Nagano Olympic Stadium, a baseball stadium in Nagano *** Nagano Universi ...

from 1995 to 1999, during which time he worked on the broadcasting of the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 ( ja, 長野1998), was a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Japan, with some events taking place in the ...

. He resigned to work on his father's campaign in the 1999 gubernatorial election in Tokyo. Although the elder Kakizawa lost this race, he was elected to the House of Representatives in the 2000 election and the younger Kakizawa subsequently served as his assistant. Kakizawa won a seat in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly in the 2001 election, campaigning to reduce the number of wards in Tokyo to twelve. He was reelected in the 2005 election as a member of the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Part ...

. In 2008, he was involved in a drunk driving accident and left the metropolitan assembly, spending the next year outside politics. He joined

Your Party is a Japanese parliamentary caucus consisting of Yoshimi Watanabe and Takashi Tachibana, later Satoshi Hamada after Tachibana forfeited his seat, in the House of Councillors. It was also a political party led by Watanabe from 2009 until its d ...

in 2009 and stood as a candidate for the 15th district in the 2009 general election. He failed to win this seat but picked up a seat in the

Tokyo proportional representation block The Tōkyō proportional representation block (), or more formally the proportional representation tier , is one of eleven proportional representation (PR) "blocks", multi-member constituencies for the House of Representatives in the Diet of Japa ...

. He won the 15th district seat in the 2012 general election. He left Your Party in August 2013, and later joined the new Yuinotoh party formed under

Kenji Eda is a Japanese politician and member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Okayama Prefecture and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1979, at ...

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kakizawa, Mito 1971 births Living people Members of the House of Representatives from Tokyo Members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Democratic Party of Japan politicians Your Party politicians University of Tokyo alumni Unity Party (Japan) politicians 21st-century Japanese politicians